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My Improvers Journey!!!!! (August 2025)

My Improvers Journey!!!!! (August 2025)

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theeldest1
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Welcome back to my Improvers Journey! This series is dedicated to following my chess journey through the Chess.com Improvers club, a movement that is helping over 30,000 members find coaching, helpful tips and growth. In this edition of my Improvers Journey, I will be showing you what I have been doing throughout the month of August, the rating milestones of this month, some featured games and puzzles, and the tournaments I'm doing next. 

What's included in this blog: 

  • Tournament recap: The Chess.com Spell Chess Championship.
  • Rating milestones. 
  • Games from this month.
  • Puzzles from this month. 
  • What's next?

Tournament recap: The Chess.com Spell Chess Championship.

Spell Chess is a very exciting variant, and the only one that I excel in. It's normal chess, with the addition of two 'spells' called a jump and a freeze. The freeze allows you to freeze a 3x3 grid for one move, and the jump allows you to move your piece through another piece as if it wasn't there. These make for some crazy tactics and out-of-this-world gameplay. You can play this variant on the variants page on chess.com. 

The monthly Community Championship for August was the Spell Chess Championship. This was the only variant that I planned to actually try to win, and I spent a lot of time preparing for it. I played almost all of the qualifiers on the qualification day and won the 8th and final qualifier by one point in a battle for the ages! I recapped the excitement in a forum post, which is linked here. 

The actual final was somewhat disappointing, as I blew a 2-0 lead against @yosephtaher in the first round and then lost my last match life in the second. But it was an experience like no other, and I enjoyed every minute of it!

I walked away from the event as the 7th best Spell Chess player in the world, with experience for next year, and a prize as well! 

Rating milestones. 

At the beginning of August, I was rated 2401 in blitz. After I came back from the US Open, I felt ready to play blitz again, and I just started playing. And I won. A lot. My rating kept climbing and climbing, and on August 6th, I reached the rating of 2493. Amazing. But I wasn't done yet. So on August 7th, I sat down at the computer and played a final blitz game against a 2460 rated CM. The game was far from flawless, but the result is what matters. 

Here you can see my progress in blitz.

As you can see, I got 2200 in July 2024, 2300 in December 2024, 2400 in April 2025, and 2500 in August this year.

I played a lot of rapid this month as well, but I didn't make it to 2300 yet. My peak was 2290, but then I lost a few games and never recovered. I can easily get there, it's just a matter of time.

Games from this month. 

Across the hundred or so games of rapid and blitz chess that I played in August, I had many spectacular wins and incredible upsets. Here are some of my best games this month.

Up first is a blitz game with a beautiful finish at the end.

Here we have a rapid game where I got a passed pawn, pushed it up the board, and ultimately sacrificed my queen to promote the pawn and win the game. 

And finally, another rapid game against a 2406. Even 2400s make mistakes, and all it took was placing the rook on the wrong square for me to capitalize.

Puzzles from this month.

As always, there were some sizzling tactics played this month, can you find the brilliancies? These positions all occurred in the games that I played this month.

What's next?

We're into the fall season, also known by the more dignified title of 'Autumn'. (Comment down below if you call it 'fall' or 'autumn'). School has started, the air is crisp, and as we start to wind down 2025, the chess will reach a fever pitch. I don't have any major plans for September, just to play online and focus on school, but October will be another story. Have a good one, thanks for reading, and as always, have a blessed day!

Past Improvers Journey 2025 Blog Posts